He studied at the major seminary in Angers and at the Institut Catholique de Paris and earned a doctorate in theology.

He was chaplain in Cholet from 1957 to 1963, director of religious instruction for the diocese from 1965 to 1967, co-director of the Institute for pastoral education in Paris from 1968 to 1973, and professor of pastoral theology and sociology at the Institute for religious culture in Abidjan from 1971 to 1976.

He was rector of the Catholic University of Lyon from 1984 to 1990 and preached the Lenten sermons at Notre-Dame de Paris from 1989 to 1991.

[1] On 26 July 1990, Pope John Paul II appointed him archbishop coadjutor of Sens.

Prior to the 1997 legislative elections, he said that politics is everyone's business: "God has entrusted the earth to all mankind.